Payday Loans – NO NO NO NO NO

I see on my Google Plus page that an outfit called “Get Payday Loans” has added me to their circles – or something.  Usually I would add them back, but I just can’t do it.  From where I sit payday loans are about the most evil thing on the planet.  They are very addictive.  Once a person gets started, they are drawn into debt and will have the devil of a time getting out.

I have never done a study or looked at any statistics on this subject.  However, I have dealt with these in numerous bankruptcy cases, so I have some opinions based on what I  myself have seen – at least what it looks like to me.  For one thing, it looks to me as if the rates they charge are very high.  Another thing I seem to be seeing is that some of the banks seem to like these things – I suspect because they charge a fee to set them up on a customer’s checking account so that when the pay check is deposited, the money automatically disappears to the lender.

I believe that anything which is automatic – happening painlessly behind the scenes without drawing full attention to itself – makes it easier to get deeply in debt.

So no, I’m not adding “Get Payday Loans” back.

What to Bring to the First Meeting at My Offce

For me the starting point for most bankruptcy cases is a call from the prospective client.  If you are reading this that could be you.  Before anything else I like to do a screening over the phone.  This can be done in about fifteen minutes, sometimes maybe a bit longer.  No need to be afraid of me.  I’m easy to talk to.  There’s no fee for the phone conversation.  If the information from the phone conversation indicates that bankruptcy is appropriate, whether that be a Chapter 7 or a Chapter 13, the next thing I want to do is meet face to face in my office for a more serious consultation. For this I will charge a small consultation fee, which I will have quoted in the phone conversation.  I will credit the consultation fee against my fee for the case if we decide to go ahead.  If I suggest that you come in for a consultation, it’s because I’m already fairly certain that it is a case I would accept.

There are four batches of information that I would ask you to bring when you come:

  1. Forms.  There are two forms on my web site, the bankruptcy questionnaire and the monthly expense sheet.   Please print these two forms and fill them out in pen and ink.  Pencil is OK too.  Then bring them with you when you come.  Some of the questions, especially on the first form, are hard to answer.  If you can’t figure out the question, leave it blank and we’ll talk about it when you come in.  Complete the expense sheet to the best of your ability, and we’ll go over those numbers when you come in too.  Remember that things you charged on a credit card count as an expense as well as the things you paid for in cash or by means of your checking account.
  2. Tax returns.  I’d like to see your state and federal tax returns for the past two calendar years, along with your W2s and any similar supporting paperwork.  At the time of writing this post, that would be the returns for 2011 and 2012.  If you filed for a Minnesota property tax refund or Minnesota rent credit, I’d like to see that return for the past two calendar years as well.  If you file separate returns for your corporation or LLC, bring them along as well.
  3. Pay stubs and income information for the past seven months.  I need to see the last seven months of pay stubs from your your job and from the job of your spouse.  If you don’t have them, get them from your employer or from your employer’s web site.  By seven months I mean the six previous months plus the month we are in.  If you don’t have pay stubs because you are self employed, I need a spread sheet showing your gross income and your business-related expenses for that same seven month period.  If you don’t have pay stubs because you are unemployed, I need detailed info on what unemployment benefits you are receiving and what taxes are being withheld from your benefits if any.  If you are receiving child support or spousal maintenance, I would want dates and amounts received during that seven month period.  If you are on  Social Security or Social Security Disability, provide me with details of how much you received gross in the past seven months and what if anything was withheld from that.  If there is any kind of income coming in from anywhere, I need to know about it.
  4. Details about your debts.  I want to see every piece of paper you have describing each and every debt.  Include your credit cards, car loans, mortgages, tax debts, student loans and any fines and penalties you owe.  I usually can’t make the student loans go away, but I still need to know all about them.  You probably intend to keep paying your mortgages and car loans, but we need to list them anyway.  Some of your tax debt may be dischargeable, but even if it isn’t we need to list it all.  Be sure to include nasty letters from lawyers and collection agencies.  Eventually we will be checking your credit report, but for the first meeting the information you have handy about your debt will probably be enough.

As you might have gathered by this point, that consultation in my office is usually quite thorough.  I should be able to give you an opinion concerning your situation that will be worth the trip.  Figure on spending an hour and a half – more if we are planning on running a means test.

Tax Season is Upon Us

Well, tax season is upon us. I am hearing from quite a few folks who have returns ready to file but don’t have the money that they are required to pay in. What I usually say is that in most circumstances it is better to file the return without paying than it is to delay filing. If you file your return without paying, the taxes you owe might be dischargeable in a bankruptcy three years from now; but if you don’t file the return, chances are that the taxes would never be dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Another reason to file is that tax filings are required to be up to date prior to the filing of a Chapter 13 bankruptcy.  And for Chapter 7 bankruptcy it is best to have them up to date.  It is possible to file a Chapter 7 without having the tax filings all finished, but it is not a good idea.  In any bankruptcy case you are required to list all your assets and all your liabilities.  A tax refund is an asset, and if you owe taxes that certainly is a liability.  Either way, without the taxes done, you don’t know what you have and you can’t  provide the full information that is required in the bankruptcy petition.

Some situations may call for something different, but most of the time it’s best to file on time even if you can’t pay on time.  The IRS and the Minnesota Department of Revenue are usually fairly easy to work with when it comes to setting up payment plans.

Keeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

Can the lien of the second mortgage be removed from my house? - Bankruptcy

Of all the questions I get asked, “can I keep my house” could be the most frequent.  I have a long article about it on my site, probably too long.  For one thing, the web page covers both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13.  For another thing, the article covers the topic of letting the house go as well as keeping it.  Here I’d like to just say a few simple words about keeping your house – the house you are living in – when you file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

So here I’m assuming that you are filing a Chapter 7 and you want to keep your house.  If you have any equity in the house, that equity will have to be claimed as exempt in order to keep the bankruptcy trustee from taking the house away from you.  In most cases claiming the house as exempt it  easy.  If the equity doesn’t exceed $10,000 for a single person or $20,000 for a married couple, we can claim the house as exempt under the federal exemptions.  If the equity is more than that, it would be best to use the Minnesota state exemptions which allow for up to $390,000 of equity.

Once we are satisfied that your equity is protected as exempt, the next issue is the mortgages.  We have to list those in the bankruptcy petition like any other debt, and that means that your personal obligation to pay them should eventually be discharged.  I say mortgages in the plural, because most of my clients seem to have two – a first and a second.  Some people I talk with seem to think that if their mortgage obligations are discharged, then the house is free and clear.  That is not the case.  The mortgage liens remain on the house even though the debt or debts themselves are discharged.  Ths means that if you want to keep the house long term after filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you need to plan on continuing to pay the mortgages.

This is a bit of a simplication, and for more detail read my keep my house page.  But what it usually comes down to is being able to claim the equity as exempt and being able to keep making the payments.

It’s Always Something

I hate this.  I have a lease for my office that covers the next two years, but the landlord just announced to me and the rest of the tenants that the place will be torn down in the next few months to make way for some sort of new development.

I love this place.  Maybe I’ll have to chain myself to my desk or something.

It’s like Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say, it’s always something.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7gLJr03vNQ

My Number is on a Billboard in Blaine??!!

Nothing is better than being debt free.

I just received a call from someone who says that my office phone number (952-544-6356) is on a billboard on Central Avenue in Blaine, MN near the intersection with 89th St.  Furthermore this caller indicated that it says the fee for filing bankruptcy is $860, which would be way below my usual fee even for the simplest case.

When I run a Google search for $860 bankruptcy in that neighborhood, I find references to a service which apparently is a paralegal outfit.  Their Google Plus page says they have closed or moved.  So did they put up my phone number so theirs would quit ringing or what?

If anybody else has seen this, I’d sure like confirmation that it’s actually there.  Frankly, I’m not sure what I would do about it if it was.

Sales Tax on Legal Services?

Payday loan worries
Now my bankruptcy is going to be taxed?
Now my bankruptcy is going to be taxed?

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton just announced that he wants to levy a sales tax on legal services.  I think I heard the proposed rate is 5.5%.  Funny, I always thought that the filing fees that we already have to pay were a sort of tax.  Not long ago , under the previous governor, all the filing fees in Minnesota were increased dramatically because of state budget problems.

I wonder if besides the attorney fee he also wants to tax the filing fees.  Since all I do is bankruptcy work, which is always filed in federal court, the filing fees I collect from my clients are all for the federal court.  Query:  Is it constitutional for a state to put a sales tax on a federal fee?

If you are from a state where attorney fees are already subject to a sales tax, I would be interested to hear the details of how it is done in your state and what the clients think about it.  My clients are already about as broke as they can get.   To tell you the truth, this feels very uncaring to me.  I understand that one state legislator is already talking about how this tax is going to help people.

Here’s a link to an article in today’s Star Tribune on the subject.

Seizure of Payments from a Reverse Mortgage

Protecting your home and your stuff

House-Piggy-Bank-and-MoneyI’ve always been reluctant to accept a bankruptcy case where the Debtors have a reverse mortgage.  When I review the paperwork involved with the reverse mortgage, it looks to me as if the homeowners are transferring a bit of the ownership of their home to the mortgage company every month.  I have always wondered if that would be considered a fraudulent transfer by a bankruptcy trustee.

Now today I’ve learned, perhaps a bit late, that a New Jersey court is saying that the payments from a reverse mortgage can be garnished by creditors.  That’s an idea I never thought of, but I am concerned that it might catch on.  In a bankruptcy context this could mean that if a person with a reverse mortgage was to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the bankruptcy trustee would be able to seize all the remaining payments on the reverse mortgage.  The trustee could keep the file open and collect the money from the reverse mortage until all the unsecured debts and all the administrative expenses were paid.  This is a frightening prospect.

When I see those TV commercials for reverse mortgages I cringe.  Seems to me that the advertising is misleading.  The folks I’ve met who have reverse mortgages don’t seem to have much of an understanding of what they got themselves into.

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